I will write and post photographs from the cities and events I visited, but this time I kind of started backwards with my last stay in Istanbul.

I have never been to Turkey nor to Istanbul and I have to say I was extremely impressed with the city and atmosphere in there. I really did not expect Istanbul to be so so amazing and beautiful. I landed in Sabiha Gökçen airport which is pretty far away from the city on the Asian side and had a long cab ride to the center. There was really something magical when I was crossing the bridge from Asia to Europe, the whole concept of it, and the view to the city was just amazing. I was so stunned that I forgot about my camera and was just staring into a window.

Unfortunately I did not have a lot of time there and managed to see very little. But it is definitely the place I will go back and spend there proper amount of time.

During my entire trip I was mostly shooting with Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L lens (on Canon 5D Mark III), photos in Istanbul are all made with 50mm f/1.4. I said to many people if you don't know which lens to get first, buy 50mm f/1.4 (or f/1.2 if you can afford it). The image quality and the "mood" is so much better than the other lenses I have and use and in this case better than 24-70mm.

Landing in Sabiha Gökçen airport. Great view of the cargo ships leaving the harbor.

Landing in Sabiha Gökçen airport. You can see Istanbul far away closer to the horizon.

Istanbul is a city of cats. Cats are everywhere and what's super nice is that people are usually chilled about that, they pet em, give them food.

In the Blue Mosque

In the Blue Mosque

Istanbul streets

Around Grand Bazaar

Entrance to Blue Mosque

Tea cup

Grand Bazaar

Blue Mosque

Carpet seller drinks tea at Grand Bazaar

Istanbul on asian side

Parking lot booth

Woman sits on of the Grand Bazaar streets

Inside Blue Mosque

I could not not to go to the Taksim Square where recently (and up until now) all the riots in Istanbul were happening. There were still a lot of people, but quite calm atmosphere.